Tower and Town, March 2024 (view the full edition)A Good ReadDo you remember Meet Me at the Museum, which came out a few years ago and was hugely, deservedly, award-winningly popular? Anne Youngson's latest novel A Complicated Matter is every bit as good, a thoughtful tale of identity and integrity. The narrator, Rose, tells her story of the civilian evacuation of Gibraltar in 1940, about which I confess I was completely ignorant. Transported, initially to Casablanca, then London, Rose and the women and children of her family and neighbourhood find themselves the object both of charity and resentment. Youngson is such an intelligent and compassionate writer about human interaction and motives, and the steady, unshowy narrative keeps driving the characters and the reader to look at the assumptions they and we make about class, friendship and romantic attachment. The attraction of opposites and the nature of friendship all feed into a story that quietly considers what it means to belong somewhere and how much it matters. It's a warm and wise book, faintly melancholy in parts, but with small flashes of wry humour. I don't like to categorise a novel as 'a good book group choice', but it is one that gives a lot of food for thought and discussion, and I loved it. To actual food now. My new favourite cookery book is A Whisper of Cardamom by Eleanor Ford - it's just glorious. Described as 'a love story between sugar and spice' it's a baking book, and more. The history of the spice trade, the romance and the darker side, is laid out with timelines and maps, and the chapter on 'Understanding Spice' gives colour-wheel style descriptions of flavours, aromas, and best matches in cooking. It's beautifully illustrated, with photographs of the cakes and desserts and lovely endpapers and chapter headings like C18th Chinese painted wallpapers. There's a pretty map of rice puddings of the world - every culture has its own version, with preferred spice flavouring. And the recipes! If I don't appear in these pages for a while it will be because I'm featuring in a Channel 5 documentary. Voiceover: As her obsession has taken hold, Debby has had to give up her career as a bookseller. At her last weigh-in she tipped 53 stone and is currently investigating fork-lift truck hire to enable her to leave the house in order to purchase more cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, star anise and caraway.... Debby Guest |